Practical resources and guidance to help colleagues support each other through tough times. Easy ways to request and offer meaningful help and care.
When someone in your community is facing illness, crisis, or caring for a loved one, it’s easy to assume they must be getting help somewhere else. The reality is different.
When someone is going through a tough time, accepting help can feel surprisingly hard. These small shifts in language can help.
What feels supportive to one person can feel frustrating or disempowering to another.
Practical help keeps life moving. It gets the jobs done and lightens the load. But when someone is having a hard time, it’s often the personal touches that make the biggest difference.
When you’ve been in the trenches for a while, it can be hard to tell where understandable stress ends and something more serious begins…
When someone’s going through a tough time, it can be hard to know whether they want to talk about what’s happening or would rather focus on something else…
It can really hurt when the people you expected to step in don’t.
Sometimes it’s disappointing. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. And sometimes it’s surprising who does show up instead…
When someone you care about is going through a tough time, it can be genuinely hard to know what kind of support they want or need in the moment. These tips can help.
When you’re going through a tough time, joy can feel distant or even inappropriate. But experiencing small moments of joy doesn’t make the hard stuff disappear, and it doesn’t mean you’re suddenly okay. Here are some ideas you could add to your day.
Asking for help can feel awkward or unfamiliar even though it’s one of the most natural things in the world. Read our tips to make it easier.
Behind every person in need, there is often a carer quietly carrying the daily load. Their role can be invisible, especially when all attention is focused on the person who is unwell.
Back in the very early days, when Gather My Crew was only an idea, I was working in Brisbane with breast cancer patients…
While many of us do it out of habit, meals don’t always address the most pressing problem a family is facing. Try a care box instead.
You don’t have to set everything up all at once. I found it much easier to set up a quick chat and a few tasks to get things rolling.
We will all need help at some point in our lives and we could all get better at asking for it.
Asking for help can feel awkward or unfamiliar even though it’s one of the most natural things in the world. Read our tips to make it easier.
“Be the person that can just sit with her and handle all of her emotions. Be the person that will not change the topic or pretend her pain isn’t real”
When times get tough, they are the people that just keep turning up. Here’s to all the hidden angels out there.
Make it easy and deliver your meal in containers the recipient can keep. When someone is in the middle of a crisis, this thoughtful gesture alleviates additional work and stress for them.
Madeleine, a Registered Nurse, talks about the benefits of using Gather My Crew.
A cancer survivor once told me that she felt there was no point in being alive because she had lost all of her friends, her place within her local community, and she had no one who understood what she has just lived through…
It marked four years without Jake. It feels like a lifetime in ways… four years since I heard his voice, four years since I hugged him, four years since I could tell him I loved him.
As a psychologist working with cancer patients, I would often talk to families about turning the ‘lasagna-shaped parcels of love’ that turn up at their front door into the help they really needed.
Our easy to use resources make it simple to provide the right help, at the right time, to people in need.
Most people needing help don’t know exactly what help they need AND those offering the help don’t know how to help them either.
Our Founder, Dr Susan Palmer, explains why Gather My Crew exists
Frank was a much loved member of the dog park community. You get to know people really well when you spend every morning with them… rain, hail or shine.
His wife had some mental health issues that meant her ability to care for their children when under stress was unpredictable.
She went to bed feeling completely overwhelmed and woke to find every task she listed the day before had been accepted by friends just waiting to be asked.
Kayla’s biggest concern was finding ways to keep the boys lives as ‘normal’ as possible despite the loss of their father.
Over the past 5 years, Lisa has been the main carer for her ageing parents who live in the same rural town.
“I can’t tell you how much easier it is to cope with things when you know that help is on the way” he told me. “Reaching out for help saved my life”.
The sudden passing of my husband in August last year came as an awful shock to me and my family…
Our daughter Audrey is 7 yrs old. She is such a beautiful and precious girl, who has endured multiple brain surgeries…
Recently, I lost my brother, Joseph, to prostate cancer. Over the last months of his life, he became more dependent on me… I was struggling.
My wonderful friendship group used GMC to communicate who was visiting and who was bringing me meals…
It was a few days after I had gutted our laundry and bathroom when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was overwhelming…
Anyone can be THAT person. The one who puts their hand up to coordinate help for someone needing support.
My story began mid-May 2022. I was 37 years of age, and with very mild symptoms, was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer.
After many tests and scans I heard the words nobody wants to hear, “You have cancer”. From there my world fell apart…
Within a couple of hours, we had a whole group of people who had been organised to drop off meals, take the girls to school…